


don't you tell me i'm dreaming

by gurlsrool



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, M/M, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, idk!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 14:04:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6960070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gurlsrool/pseuds/gurlsrool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s me,” Jack’s voice comes low and hits him hard. You are not in love, Bitty reminds himself. He is not in love with you and you are not in love with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't you tell me i'm dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in one go while watching gossip girl instead of writing the fic i was supposed to be working on! whoops! title from the song the rain by oh wonder. tw for recreational drug use, strong language, mentions of sex, and ?? a lil angst who knows!

Shitty’s bedroom door is open, like it always is, but Bitty still knocks. He feels like he’s intruding on some secret society, masked in a cloud of smoke and Ransom’s pounding playlist of pop and showtunes. 

The knock is most likely muffled by Julie Andrews's voice so Bitty takes a step forward, clears his throat once, twice, three times. He gets their attention when he actually starts choking, from the sudden inhalation of secondhand smoke.

The music's abruptly turned down as Shitty yells, “Jack Zimmermann get your fucking future professional athlete lungs out of here, the Bruins or the Penguins or whoever the fuck need you- breathing!” he’s interrupted towards the end by what looks like Lardo plopping her head onto his lap.

“Uh I think Jack’s meeting with recruiters,” Bitty says timidly, fussing with the tray of mini pies in his hands.

“Eric Bittle!” Shitty shouts, not looking up from where he’s watching Lardo trace doodles onto this arm, “Step into my office, c’mon!” Ransom scoots over so Bitty can wedge himself between him and Shitty, across from Holster and a lit joint that’s staring him down. “What brings you here? School trouble? Boy trouble?”

Bitty shrugs, shrinking into himself and averting eye contact. It’s not enough to bypass Lardo. She looks up and presses a careful finger to his chin, shifting his face upward until they’re looking at each other head on. Even looking at her features rotated 180 degrees, he can tell she’s studying him. He can also tell, without breaking her gaze, that Shitty’s studying Lardo while Lardo studies him. 

Her face settles and she looks back to Shitty when she asks, “Do you want a hit?” It takes him a moment to realize she’s addressing him. “Bitty. You want a hit?” 

“Oh,” Bitty swallows and nods, slightly, so only she can see. It doesn’t matter, she was already passing him the joint because she knew what his answer would be. She’s like that. She knows when to pass any of them a beer or a water or a slice of pie. Or all three.

Ransom and Holster whoop as the joint is slipped from Lardo’s fingers to his but she rolls her eyes. “Don’t make a whole thing of it,” she waves her now free hand lazily.

“Our boy’s losing his weed virginity!” Holster exclaims, leaning back onto Ransom’s shoulder. “He’s growing up so fast.”

“Dude, you barely even smoke what the hell are you on about?” Shitty jumps forward and snatches Holster’s joint, falling back as Lardo swats him so he’ll remain still while she draws. Bitty can see now that it’s a mural, not a collection of doodles. From this far away, he can’t quite make out what it is but Shitty’s looking at it like he wants to get it tattooed.

“Also,” Shitty says, watching Bitty take his first hit. “Virginity is a social construct.”

“Isn’t that just something virgins say?” Holster takes the joint back straight from Shitty’s mouth. 

Bitty expects a rant but Shitty just flashes Lardo a dopey smile as she removes her sharpie and pushes him back onto a pile of his dirty laundry. “Don’t be fucking gross man,” he says, using a pair of purple boxers as a pillow. “How’s it going Bits?”

“Hmm?” Bitty looks up from where he’s begun to scroll through twitter with one fidgety finger, “Do you want this back?” 

“Do you want to give it back?” Lardo asks, rolling over on Shitty’s lap so she’s looking at him head on now, chin settled into her hands.

“I don’t know,” Bitty says honestly, eyes flicking between his phone and the top of Lardo’s head and Ransom and Holster quietly squabbling over a mini pie while attempting to not set The Haus on fire. 

There’s a silhouette in the doorway and Bitty jumps, instinctively, like the dean or a cop or lord forbid, his mother, will be on the other side of the haze of smoke. “Hey have you guys seen Bittle?” 

Lardo snorts and Bitty gives a small wave with the joint between his fingers. 

“Oh uh,” Jack looks down at him, more of a shadow than anything, and for some reason it feels worse than it would if he had been caught by his mom. “I see you’re busy I’ll just…”

“No, stay,” Bitty reaches a hand out but belatedly realizes that all of Jack is out of reach and stupidly, quickly, drops it back down. He steps forward and sits down beside Bitty anyways. His gaze follows the joint as Bitty moves it up to his mouth. He pauses just before he takes a hit and blurts out, “I have a bucket list.”

“What?” Jack looks down at him and god those eyes are going to be the death of him. 

“I don’t smoke, usually,” Bitty says, quickly, babbling and lord isn’t the pot supposed to be calming him down? “But my mom mailed me all these old papers of mine and there was this college bucket list that I made in high school and I mean, she didn’t read it, thank the lord, or I assume she didn’t, otherwise she’d probably be on the next flight to Logan! But-” 

“Bittle.” Bitty looks up from the floor, eyelashes heavy, “First of all, calm down, you’re going to set Shitty’s hair on fire.”

“Oh uhhh… here take this,” he passes the joint to Jack who looks at it thoughtfully. “Second of all?”

“Second of all, it’s fine. I don’t care what you do,” Bitty knows Jack meant that to be reassuring but it stabs something inside of him he doesn’t want to think about, “Just don’t let it interfere with how you are on the ice and it’s fine.”

“I…” Bitty doesn’t know what to do with his hands now that they’re not holding the joint. He grabs his phone again, thumbing through apps, staring blankly at the screen so he doesn’t have to look at Jack or the rest of the room looking at him not look at Jack. The silence is so strong he feels like he needs to say something and in his panic ends up going with, “I don’t need your permission, you’re not… my dad? And… even if you were, I wouldn’t ask for your permission!” He cringes at the words as they leave his mouth, “I mean like, I wouldn’t ask my dad’s permission to smoke weed, that would just be a death wish like… would you ask your dad? For permission? To smoke weed?” 

“I don’t know,” Jack shrugs, as if Bitty didn’t just lose _his fucking mind_ , and holds the joint out in front of him, studying it almost contemplatively. “I think it’d be good to ask him how it affected his lungs, when he smoked, so maybe.” 

“Why is everything about sports with you?” Bitty asks at the same moment that Ransom and Holster blurt out “Bad Bob smoked pot?”

“Yeah,” he says to them, with a shrug, “We don’t have a lot in common, eh?” he chuckles to himself but Bitty doesn’t miss the way he frowns after his smile fades. “And it’s not.”

“What?” Ransom asks.

“It’s not just about sports,” he says, turning to Bitty, eyes amused, “Believe it or not, I use my lungs even when I’m not playing hockey.”

“Right,” Lardo laughs, “Like when you’re working out. Or going on runs.”

“Dude like… when was the last time you did more… you know… fun cardio?” Holster asks, raising his eyebrows. Lardo shoots him a glare before Shitty can. “What? We all have to give sex deets, why is he exempt?!”

“Maybe because he doesn’t have sex, dude,” Ransom snatches the joint from Jack’s hand and Jack blinks as if he had forgotten he was holding it. He passes it to Holster a second later with a pointed look.

“Still, he could give like… wet dream deets.”

Bitty’s not sure if it’s the contact high that makes Jack even bother with this conversation or something else. Bitty thinks it must be the devil himself when Jack says, “Camilla.” They all fall silent, even their movements hushed. Bitty feels like the smoke is finally getting to his lungs even though he knows he's nowhere close to being high. “The uh, last person… it was Camilla.”

“Dude,” Holster grins, “That’s ‘sawesome she’s like… hot as hell.” He holds his fist out to Jack but he ignores it in favor of looking at Bitty and Bitty prays the room is dark enough that Jack won’t see how pink his cheeks are. “How was she?” 

Jack crinkles his nose, “I feel like I’ve given enough deets,” Bitty laughs at the sheer sound of that word coming out of Jack’s mouth. Jack raises his eyebrows and Bitty doesn’t have a verbal or nonverbal response so he drops his eyes to Lardo instead, who’s lazily playing some sort of weird hand game with Shitty and ignoring the rest of the room, tapping the tips of her fingers against his and listening for the crackle when they collide. 

“Dude a name is not deets,” Shitty glances up from Lardo’s hands, “If it helps, what happens in Casa De Shitty never leaves Casa De Shitty and those who do not adhere to the rules of Casa De Shitty will be sleeping on the lawn of the lax bros’ house for the rest of the semester,” he gives each of them a pointed look.

“Anal?” Holster asks, watching Jack’s face as he does. 

“Oh my god.”

“Okay… not anal. Oral?” Jack freezes for just a millisecond, so small that to the naked eye it’s almost nothing.

“Nice, dude,” Shitty grins, this time not looking away from Lardo, “I hope you used those dental dams I got you, don’t waste my fucking money.”

Jack rolls his eyes, mumbles, “I could have gotten them myself.”

“Nah, you’re too much of a bashful motherfucker, can’t let that get in the way of safe sex!” 

Bitty’s trying very hard to not think about the fact that he’s gaining insight into the sex life of the boy that sometimes slips into the end of his 3 a.m. fantasies. “Wait seriously?” Ransom grins, “Duuuude! Like… giving or receiving?”

Jack’s silent for a long moment, like he’s really contemplating the right words before he says, “Do you honestly receive without giving Rans? You should work on that.”

Ransom chokes on smoke or maybe just air. Holster lets out a loud whoop. Lardo cackles. Shitty calls out a “That’s my boy!” Bitty sits completely still and wonders if there’s a way he can get the last ten seconds erased from his mind because lord he did not need that information in his subconscious. 

“Bittle?” He missed a question. He’s fairly positive he missed a question because his head is spinning and he’s not sure if he’s awake or not.

“Hmm?”

“You okay?”

“Oh yeah just…” he gestures to the joint he hasn’t taken a hit from since Jack walked in, “you know. Sorry, what were you saying hon?”

He wonders if Jack likes nicknames. Being called them or calling other people them. Shit. _Girls,_ he tells himself, _calling girls them._ “That college bucketlist. What else is on it?” 

“Oh,” Bitty lets out an embarrassed laugh, rubs the back of his neck, “It’s embarrassing really I mean, I made it when I was lord, seventeen? Maybe sixteen, I can’t even remember but it’s been… awhile.” 

“Yeah Bits, tell us, Samwell is like fucking Disney world,” Holster grins, “We’ll make all your dreams come true.”

“Your fairy godmothers,” Ransom adds.

“No one make a gay joke, you can’t fucking blame it on this weakass high,” Shitty mutters just as Lardo clears her throat and sits up.

“You know these assholes aren’t going to let this go,” she says, “Go on, get the list and get it over with.” 

He sighs and reluctantly stands, walking carefully around Jack to his room. He spends a moment at his desk, holding the list and breathing in air not tainted with the smell of weed and Shitty’s laundry and Jack Zimmermann’s shampoo. He comes back, pencil in hand, and begins to read it off.

“Honestly, there’s not even much on it,” he says, “Just… smoke weed,” he puts a little check mark beside that one, “Go to a party, I can put a few checkmarks by that one lord. Figure out what I’m going to do after college, still working on that. Get blackout drunk, check. Go to a concert, check. Learn a foreign language, working on that next year. Study abroad, maybe senior year. Then some dumb things about winter, you know, like making a snow angel or whatever. Aaand the other two aren’t happening anytime soon so,” Bitty shrugs, “It’s really not a big deal, honestly.”

“I mean, it must be some kind of deal if it got you to do weed with these assholes,” Jack says.

“It’s _smoke_ weed,” Holster leaps across Jack’s lap and attempts to snatch the paper from Bitty. Bitty jumps back with a yelp and Jack manhandles Holster easily, pushing him back into Ransom’s shoulder.

“You could have just asked!” Bitty says indignantly.

“Okay,” Holster concedes, “Sorry. What’s it say?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“If it doesn’t matter just tell us,” Ransom chimes in.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Well if it’s not a big deal-”

“It’s just come out to my parents and kiss a boy okay?!” he says it quickly and doesn’t look any of them in the eye, “I told you, it’s not a big deal, okay? Seriously.”

“Bits,” Lardo says softly and he really can’t bear to look at her so he doesn’t try to, falls onto his back and closes his eyes instead. “It’s really not. Honestly, I mean, I’m sure Shitty could say it in a lot more words than me but there’s no deadline for coming out.” 

“Seriously dude, what she said,” Shitty says in agreement, “And I mean… about the other thing…”

Bitty jumps back up, opens his eyes, and narrows his gaze on Shitty. “Weren’t you the one who literally just said virginity is a social construct or whatever the hell? It’s fine. I’m fine. Leave it be.”

“I was just going to say that there's no deadline on that either dude, I promise, but... you're right, we don't have to talk about it man,” Shitty says sincerely, taking a hit, "I'm sorry." 

“But dude like… why haven’t you?” Holster asks weakly, “Seriously, no judgment, I swear on Ransom’s fucking life-”

“Don’t do that, I’m not ready to be a ghost,” Ransom whispers but Holster shakes him off.

“I swear, no judgement but like… you’re so great, Bits.”

“Ha.”

“No, I’m serious like, you’re hot? And nice? And you have killer dance moves and you could get guys on their knees with your smile and a piece of pie in five seconds flat like… why haven’t you, that’s all I’m asking, you know?” Bitty wills himself not to look at Jack. He does. He tells himself it will be a mistake, even though he knows no one but maybe Lardo would be able to pick up on it, he can’t bear to see his face right now or ever again honestly. He ends up not looking but glancing. It’s a fair compromise, he figures. Jack’s face is, for once, unreadable, or maybe it just is to Bitty in his state of panic. 

In the time he’s laid down and sat back up, Jack has acquired a joint, most likely from Lardo. It looks foreign in his hand and it makes Bitty think of the times they’ve baked together, when Jack’s held a whisk just inches from his face and chirped him in words he can’t pay attention to because he’s too busy staring at the smattering of flour on his cheekbone.

Jack considers the joint for a long moment before he slowly brings it up to his mouth. He’s aware Ransom and Holster are probably making a whole thing of it, like always, but he’s not listening, like always. 

He looks just past Bitty’s eyes when he takes the hit. He feels something solid and certain and painful in his chest, a feeling he’s been familiar with for so long but keeps somehow, impossibly, getting worse and worse and worse.

“I’m gonna go,” he mutters, pulling himself to his feet, “This has been fun y’all, really, I’ll uh… pay you back for the weed, if you want me to. Thanks.” It’s a poor excuse for a closing line but it’s all he can think of before he’s charging back to his bedroom, closing the door softly behind him. He lays face down on his bed and repeats his mantra, _Jack Zimmermann is straight, Jack Zimmermann is straight, you are just one of so many people who have fallen for a boy like Jack Zimmermann, if not Jack Zimmermann himself, and you will never know what his voice sounds like pressed against your ear._ He’s starting to feel light headed when there’s a knock on the door.

“Go away Rans or Holtz or whoever you are, I don’t want to be set up-”

“It’s me,” Jack’s voice comes low and hits him hard. _You are not in love_ , Bitty reminds himself. _He is not in love with you and you are not in love with him._ “Uh… it’s Jack. Zimmermann,” he chuckles and Bitty can hear the anxiety wavering in his laugh alone, “You know that eh? Sorry.”

Along with the fact that they are not in love, stands the fact that Jack Zimmermann is an idiot. An adorable, loveable, gorgeous, fool of an idiot. He calls out something that probably sounds like “come in” from his pillow because he hears the door click open, then soft footsteps, then the sound of a body thunking down softly beside him. He really wishes Jack had chosen the desk chair. He doesn’t think he can bear the sight of Jack in his bed right now, or ever, really.

He rolls over anyways, because he still has his southern manners and he should make conversation. The boy’s come to check on him after all. Why does he have to be so damn sweet? 

“Hi Bittle.”

“Hi Jack,” he sighs, “If you’ve come here with pity, leave it at the door, I have enough of it for myself.” 

“Oh uh, actually, I came to return this,” Jack presses a piece of paper, the bucket list, into Bitty’s hand and Bitty wants to fly back to Madison immediately so he can be buried in his family’s plot at the local cemetery. Maybe they’ll place him beside his great grandmother, under the willow tree, it's shady there (not that it'd matter much six feet under but still, it's a nice thought). “And apologize.”

“Apologize?” He manages to croak out. Sometimes, like now, he wishes Jack was horrible. It would be so much easier if Jack made fun of him for never having kissed a boy or if he didn’t bother to comfort him then, or ever. It would be so much easier if Jack was an asshole, just once. 

“Yeah, for um, pressing the whole bucket list thing?” He says quietly, “That was wrong of me. I just wanted to help, I didn’t know it would be so… personal. Anyways, I’m really sorry.” 

He’s beginning to feel bad for his future husband because he feels like there’s a big part of himself that will never move on from this stupid boy. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Bitty gets enough strength to sit up beside Jack, swinging his legs beside Jack’s. Next to his, they look like twigs. It makes him smile, just a little. “Really, it’s not like you wrote the dumb list or anything.”

“No,” Jack concedes and Bitty nudges him, slightly, just enough so he won’t send himself over the edge. “I did have a bucket list going into college. I mean, it wasn’t a bucket list, it was a list of goals? I made it with my therapist.” 

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Jack nods, “Most of them were hockey related. A few about academics. One or two about you know… my anxiety. There was another one, I was too afraid to write down it down though. I wanted to find someone.”

“Oh?” Bitty can’t produce much more than a syllable right now.

“Yeah. I don’t know, it was probably dumb, but I thought it’d be nice to meet someone at Samwell, you know… instead of meeting someone in the hockey world. I don’t know.”

Bitty nods and replies, mostly to himself, “Yeah like… Camilla. That’s good Jack, she really is… pretty.”

“What?” Jack frowns. “No, Camilla and I aren’t together. I mean, she’s great but we weren’t… meant to be, I think.” 

There’s a pause and Bitty realizes that Jack’s looking at him. He turns his head and realizes that not only is Jack looking, he’s staring, with an intensity he only gets before games and during really boring documentaries. He’s so focused on those stupid eyes that he doesn’t even realize that Jack’s moving closer, until he’s almost too late, until he says something he immediately regrets.

“No!” He yelps and Jack blinks, pulls back. The sheer amount of rejection on his face is the only thing that really convinces him that he was about to be kissed. “Jack, no.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack whispers, drawing back further, “Sorry… I thought…” 

“What?” He’s getting angry now, honestly, because he hates this universe, the one he’s been thrown into for the past nineteen years, so damn much. “You thought what? That you’d be some macho straight hero and save a virgin gay boy by kissing him? I told you I don’t want your pity Jack.”

“What?” Jack blinks, eyes wide, “No that’s not what I meant, I-”

Bitty sighs. “Sorry, I’m just taking things out on you Jack, I didn’t mean it like that, I just…” he takes one deep breath, “I don’t want to know what it’s like, kissing you,” he really wishes he sounded more confident and less like he was about to burst into tears, hands and voice shaking. “I don’t want to know what it’s like and then never get to again,” he looks back down but eventually forces his head back up with every piece of strength left in him, so he can look Jack in the eye as he says, “If it was just a one time thing... it would hurt too much Jack.” 

Jack blinks once, twice, three times. Bitty waits for the moment where he leaves. He waits for the moment where he calls him disgusting or gets angry or annoyed or shoves him in a closet although he knows logically he never would- the moment never comes. 

"What if it was more than once?" Jack asks.

"What?"

"Hypothetically, if I wanted to kiss you more than once, would you, hypothetically, want to kiss me... more than once?" Bitty can barely process the words, the heavy way his eyes sink, the quiet tapping of his fingers. "I just want to be clear." 

"Well yeah..." Bitty furrows his eyebrows, "I don't see why it matters to-"

His words are cut off as Jack presses his lips against Bitty's and with a reflex he didn’t even know he had, closes his eyes and kisses back before he can think better of it. When he draws back, he thinks he’s definitely going to cry now, his throat heavy, his emotions a mess of longing and confusion, and his mouth tasting like weed and salt and Jack Zimmermann's lips. He can't figure out what any of this means but it's overwhelming the hell out of him. “Jack-” 

He kisses him again and again and again and only stops in the moment Bitty assumes he feels his tears on his cheeks. “That was four wasn’t it?”

“What?” Bitty chokes out. It’s taking all his power to not politely ask Jack to leave so he can cry about this in private, whatever _this_ is. Luckily, he’s too wide eyed and dazed to form complete sentences. 

Jack looks down at him for a long moment before his eyes go wide with concern, “I, shit, I’m sorry, you didn’t even... that wasn’t okay.”

“What?”

“I mean, you said you didn’t want to kiss me so I should have just… dropped it… what the hell is wrong with me? Shit,” He ducks his head into his hands and runs his fingers through them. “Sorry, shit, sorry, I just… I wanted to kiss you. I mean, I want to kiss you. Not just once, I don’t pity you, that wasn’t pity, crisse I’m horrible at this. That's why I just... did that, instead of you know... using my words or whatever. Sorry.”

“Horrible at… what exactly?” Bitty’s not sure he remembers what breathing feels like.

“I like you.”

“Like… you… like like me?” He’s aware it’s a very childish thing to say but he really needs to wrap his mind around this and he’s going to need explicit clarity to do so. 

Jack laughs and nods, quickly. “Yes, I do Bittle. I like like you. A lot.”

Bitty’s still not sure if this is real so he leans up and kisses him, eyes completely open, just to see what happens. Jack kisses back. And then Bitty’s eyes are closing and they’re kissing again and again and again and one voice in his head is saying _you are kissing him and he is kissing you back_ and the other is so, blissfully quiet. 

“How many was that?” Jack asks, drawing back for a moment. “Eight? Nine?”

Bitty pulls his knees up on his bed and falls back onto his pillow. He pulls Jack with him and knows he shouldn’t have the strength for it but Jack follows him so willingly it doesn’t matter. “Stop counting you nerd,” he laughs and he hears Jack’s response pressed into the bone of his cheek, just beside his ear.

“I wanted you to know it’s more than just one,” Jack whispers, kissing his cheek once before moving back to his lips, “Way more than just one.”

Bitty draws his arm back and in the process brushes up against the bucket list, still on the bed. He throws it to the floor before locking his hands behind Jack’s head, looks into his eyes and reminds himself, _you are not asleep, you are not asleep, you are not asleep._

He grins something lazy and knowing as he whispers against Jack’s lips, “Show me.”

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on tumblr @ gaysun! ily all!!!! ill have another fic up by friday stay tuned!


End file.
